Thick fog, rain, pitch black darkness and choking dust was no match for Rigid Industries LED equipped racers at the 46th annual Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 off-road race. The Baja 1000 is the granddaddy of desert racing. The course was an 883-mile loop, that climbed and descended rocky mountain passes, plowed through bottomless silt beds and touched both coasts of the Baja Peninsula. It was said to be one of the toughest most technical ever. Rigid Industries racers did more than survive, they thrived in the challenging conditions.

At the top of the list was overall winner BJ Baldwin. BJ won both the race and the SCORE Trophy Truck championship for the second year in a row. His win was accomplished driving the entire distance ironman style with no relief driver. His Rigid Industries lighting set-up consisting of a combination of D2 drives, 54″radius combos and a 54″ radius spot and 40” Hyperspot allowed him to fly through the silt beds and leave the rest of the Trophy Truck field in the dust. Late race charges by his rivals couldn’t keep up at night and failed to have any effect. At the mere sight of them in the rear view mirror he put his truck on the chip and checked out, leaving them in the darkness. BJ was one of the first racers to embrace LED lighting and Rigid Industries has helped him to achieve several of his 7 Championships. This includes winning the last 2 Baja 1000 races with only Rigid Industries LED lighting.

Rigid Industries class 1 racer Damen Jeffries took a highly contested victory finishing just seven seconds ahead of second place. His Rigid Industries lighting helped to guide him to the finish through darkness and rain. “It was raining coming back into town; we lost the intercom and didn’t have any GPS,” says Damen, “It was nerve wracking coming back into town because there are a lot of spectators. It’s not easy to push hard and still be smart coming home.” Without GPS, Damen was able to hold off a hard charging second place competitor with the aid of his Rigid Industries LED lighting.

Outstanding victories were also accomplished by Rigid Industries racers Kevin Carr in his class 5 Unlimited Baja Bug and Dan Chamlee who persevered through incredible hardships to take the class 7 victory. Carr, who has multiple Baja victories and class 5 points championships, was short and sweet at the finish line. “The course was rough and the silt beds were terrible.” He has seen countless miles on the Baja peninsula, much more than others after the sun has gone down thanks to his Rigid Industries lighting. For Chamlee, it was a difficult race but he earned the victory. “When we were moving we were putting down some good time and having a lot of fun. Unfortunately we weren’t always moving. I flipped the truck on its lid, broke the transmission. Most of the race I ran with no clutch and had to speed shift because it was packed with silt and wouldn’t disengage. We would blow it out and then we would hit another silt bed. My truck is thrashed.”

The toughest conditions are no match for the superior lighting performance Rigid Industries provides. When you demand the best in optical technology and rugged durability there is nothing that compares to Rigid Industries LED lighting.

The Runamuk team have pulled off back to back wins at the Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200; the father and son team shaving 3minutes off their 2012 outright time. Sharing the driving duties of the Runamuk Jimco #58, Bruce and Bryce Chapman, with Peter Vial in the navigators seat, eclipsed the 60 plus strong field to finish the 15 lap event with over a minute and a half lead to Warialda legend Terry Rose and grandson Justin Taylor.

Rounding out the 2013 Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200 podium was Dale and Mal Chadburn #32, three minutes off the pace of Chapman.

The first ProLite home and a very credible fourth outright was Les Marshall and Glennys Rose #105, crossing the line with a minute lead over fifth outright and the first Super 1650 of Werner and Sue Zettl #232.

Jamie and Symon Knight are finding their feet in their new #439 Richard Bennet Truck, clocking in 16th outright and first in Extreme 2WD class. UTV class honours went to Phil and Adam Swindale, securing 22nd outright in the #619 machine.

There was a battle in the Hedweld Engineering team with daughter Rikky Hedley taking class honours for Extreme 4WD and pippin Mum Jan Hedley by hundredths of a second to finish 26 and 27 outright respectively; Jan and Daniel Gardner walked away with the silverware for Performance 2WD class.

38 teams completed the full race distance, leaving a long and interesting failure list. Glen Towers and Jamie Adams put the #80 on the front row of the grid heading into the long course section of the event; Towers unable to capitalise on the position with gearbox failure.

Andy Ryan and Dave Smith were making their presence felt, running at the front of the field, until a flat tyre on lap 13 added 11 minutes to their time, relegating the #50 Alumi Craft to 11th outright.

Lady Luck wasn’t on the side of the second Runamuk team cars with Buddy and Kerry Crowe #4 unable to take to the track on Sunday with engine dramas. Buddy Crowe Jnr and Oliver Holmes clocked in a few more laps, their weekend on lap 10 in the #144 ProLite. The fourth Runamuk Pro buggy with Alisha Crowe behind the wheel and Lachlan Andrews navigating recorded a 14th outright, putting down consistent laps times for the weekend and taking out the prized Dash for Cash.

Ashley Mowbray was having a triumphant weekend, sitting in third outright going into the last lap when axle failure left the #20 Pro buggy one laps shy of full race distance. Glenn Spizzo and Anthony Lia were also running in the top ten when their power plant let go on lap 12.

The three teams currently sitting atop of the New South Wales Off Road Championship point score all finished the Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200 and banking valuable points. It will be a hectic time as we head into the business end of the season for Glen Hoffman, Craig Anderson and Derek Rose.

The volunteers and members of the Warialda Off Road Club have once again staged a successful Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200; will Runamuk be back in 2014 to take out the hat trick.

The ‘On Track 4WD Centre 200’ proved to be by far the most eventful race we had yet attended. Arriving Saturday morning we were quick to unload and hit the track for reconnaissance, the course made it obvious very early on that it was going to be a hard, tough and rough 14.5 km’s to drive fast and consistently.

The first heat commenced early that afternoon, despite the less then desirable track conditions we finished in good time putting us among the top three. Pumped after such a good drive we quickly checked over the car and lined up third from the start line for round two.

No more than 1 km into the course things quickly went downhill with suspected rock smashing a wheel, hub and brake calliper. This then lead to the collapse of the rear navigator’s side wheel bearing (should have stopped when the brakes went). Due to limited braking the car coped nothing but more damage until finally coming to a rest track side.

Come Sunday morning we were again… lined up and ready to race. Having driven home and spent the majority of Saturday night rebuilding the back end of the Polaris we considered the weekend far from over. Our next two laps proved that, with our times being equal to those holding outright places.

Second last heat of the event and disaster struck again, an almost identical repeat of yesterday’s incident. With no remaining spares that was unfortunately us out.

The weekend was however anything but a waste of time with so many new things learnt about the performance and capabilities of the Polaris. With repairs and upgrades almost complete we will be ready for the ARB Goondiwindi 400 in August!